Thoughts on Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

I am a very slow reader.  I got this book (HarperCollins, Ha) several weeks ago, but I haven't read much of it.  In the past, I would do whole book reviews on here, but in this case, I think I will chunk it out, and do reviews of sections of the book.  It is derived from an edge.org project.  They have about 150 2-4 page essays from prominent scientists and artists.  The book is an edited version of the essays on the edge.org site.  For example, Clay Shirky talks about the invisible college. 

Concerning the old publishing and mass media system:

The beneficiaries of the system in which making things public was a privileged activity--academics, politicians, reporters, doctors--will compain about the way the new abundance of public thought upends the old order, but those complaints are like keening at a wake: The change they are protesting is already in the past.  The real action is elsewhere. [Preprint of the essay is here.]

I hear some things like this from my faculty.  I need them to wake up and see that the old publishing system is dying, and that they need to support new methods of publishing and peer-review. The Administrators need to figure out new ways to award tenure based on the different publishing systems. The architecture of access to scientific knowledge is just plain messed up.  We can't go back to the good ol' days.


Hopefully, I will be able to blog about many more sections of this book.

Some thoughts on #TEDxMileHigh

I was able to go to TEDxMileHigh last week, and I had a great time.  I tweeted some of the sessions and I had one with a typo for the hashtag.  I really liked the presentations by Bernard Amadei (talked about http://www.ewbdenver.org/), Gov. Hickenlooper, Dr. Paul Polak and Allen Lim.

I was able to volunteer for the event, so I was able to get some videos of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House before the event began.  And, here they are:

My tweets from the Provost Lunch #provostlunch

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Here are my tweets from the Provost Lunch by Susan Schulten on "The Meaning of Maps in American History." They are in reverse chronological order.

• Can maps be used for ill? #provostlunch walker was head of census and Indian affairs at same time at age of 27! View Tweet
• Some countries and people are not very spacially oriented. #provostlunch ?not sure how to answer. View Tweet
• Cholera map the blank map was an invitation for more new info. #provostlunch View Tweet
• Brothers among nations book. #provostlunch View Tweet
• The yellow fever maps didn't work. #provostlunch View Tweet
• Who have helped her incl @dupenrose faculty and staff. #provostlunch View Tweet
• Betty Meagher is cataloging lots of the digital maps #provostlunch rich and varied cartograhic history. Thanks all of the people ... View Tweet
• Allow the nation to coallesce in a certain way. #provostlunch very complicated, detailed and beautiful. Alex has helped to digitize them. View Tweet
• Early form of gis. Not 1960s but 1800s. #provostlunch forign parentage map translate info into knowledge. View Tweet
• Walker census data map. Colored, density, wealth, poverty, disease and ethnicity. #provostlunch convince congress to fund various things. View Tweet
• Map of ratio of slave pop to non slave pop. "Went viral" back then. #provostlunch became import to Lincoln. Map in a painting. View Tweet
• Map of slave pop in VA done by the Coast survey? #provostlunch Shows big diff between west Virginia and VA. View Tweet
• Map productivity of cotton production and slaves together on same map in blue red and yellow colors. #provostlunch View Tweet
• Mid 1800 maps became tools to map social and human data. #provostlunch census map of cotton kingdom Olmsted View Tweet
• amyewest: RT @jokrausdu: "the map made the difference" even though the data was publicly avail. #provostlunch #data #visualization View Tweet
• Blodget isothermal map of whole us. Seasonal, too. #provostlunch based on several decades and 100K+ data points. View Tweet
• Military asks soldiers to collect weather. This data turned into weather maps, temperature. #provostlunch and usno and smithsonian. View Tweet
• Science of weather meteorology, climate plays a crucial role. #provostlunch Barton did the New Orleans map. Race to map the weather. View Tweet
• Map as a tool of investigation of yellow fever, not just for showing places. #provostlunch Analytical instrument. View Tweet
• Sanitary map of New Orleans. #provostlunch Era before knowledge of microbiology. Salubrity is a new word for me. View Tweet

• I think we just got a book on van humboldt.... #provostlunch View Tweet
• "the map made the difference" even though the data was publicly avail. #provostlunch View Tweet
• Goes over prop 8 maps #provostlunch Mashup at google maps. View Tweet
• Read the nytimes article, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/how-the-west-was-won/ #provostlunch View Tweet
• #provostlunch intro to Susan Schulten Dissert at UPenn Book Geographical Imagination View Tweet

Open Attribute, what it does...

It took me a while to figure out what adding the Open Attribute browser add-on actually did. I thought it would add a popup or something like that to pages that were CC licensed. It adds a little CC license image to the browser bar, and it is clickable. See the image below.

When you click on the CC in the circle, it will tell you more about the license for that content.

Renovation Plan Demonstration at #scio11

Here is what I presented at the Science Online Unconference, Sunday at 11:30am-12:30pm.

Scio11 demonstration

View more presentations from Joseph Kraus.

Some of the feedback that I received was:

• Students still need to have lots of physical books available to them on-site.
• The library should scan as many books as possible to make ebooks.
• Need to advertise just how many ebooks we already have available.
• Advertise all of our electronic resources, not just ebooks.
• Loan out Kindles (or other ebook devices).
  
• Let people know that our document delivery services are free to them.
• Spread the librarians throughout campus to create a more decentralized library. This will force faculty to think more outside the box.
• Create more embedded librarian positions.
• Better advertise that the library (and hence the university) pays for access to all of these journals, databases and ebooks, and that the information is not free.
• Let the patrons know that we keep track of download data. Let them know some of that usage data. [That may or may not be allowable by the vendors.]
  
• Should consider doing a before and after survey, so that we can see how much electronic use increases after the renovation has begun. This would be a good article opportunity.
• Brand the golf cart as the "Library on the Go" cart.
• Display the blue prints. Need to let them know what the place is going to look like and get them excited about the new facility.
• This is an opportunity for the library to foster stronger connections to the students and faculty who already use the library, and an opportunity to create new connections with people who don't use the library as much now.
  

Some of my videos at the #scio11 Conference

Here are some videos.

We got to see some of the internal sections of the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.



There are about 11 other videos of "Behind the scenes" at:

http://friendfeed.com/jokrausdu/583d84e8/made-videos-of-behinds-scenes-at-north-carolina

Prezi session at #scio11

Here are my quick notes of Prezi... I'm giving it a try right now. If you are an educator, make sure you sign up for the educational account.

• Overlap elements when you give a prezi
• Don’t spin too much – don’t make your audience sea sick.
• No way to embed a prezi within another prezi.
• They have a good “learn” system and tips.
• Prezi meeting can hold up to 10 people who can work on the same presentation.
• For a good prezi, one should think in frames with multiple objects, not linear slides.
• Instead of having to go forwards or go backwards to a specific slide, you just pull back, and then you can go wherever you want.
• Think of prezi more like a concept map or a mind map – not just linear thinking.
• Make the details small.
• It has circle, square, and rectangle frames. Frames within frames, use as many frames as you need.
• Take a look at some of her examples. Here is a group made one.
  
• Make your CV as a prezi. Huh, that sounds like a good idea
• Easier to get small than to get bigger. Start big, then scale down when you need to.
• Use PDFs.
  
• Use higher image quality in the upload. Zooming in will be granulated otherwise.
• OverLAP, Shift DRAG, SURPRISE your audience.
• It doesn't seem like prezis can be embedded into a blog, though.
  

Top 10 reasons why...

I don't like top 10 lists.

1. They are usually meaningless
2. They often have items that could have been left out to make a top 7 list.
3. They remind me of gender specific magazines that list the top this or that.
4. Some of them leave out a couple of items, so it should actually be a top 12 or a top 16 list.
5. They always show up at the end of the year or the beginning of the year, why not March or October?
6. They remind me of David Letterman, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
7. They remind me of my dear departed next-door neighbor's dog -- don't ask.
   

My twitter wordle

This is a twitter wordle from the last couple of years for me. I've seen some other people have their year of Facebook status updates put into a list, and I thought it would be interesting to see what my twitter feed would look like as a Wordle. Even though this covers two years worth of tweets, I bet a wordle of just 2010 would be very similar.

First, I went to tweetstats, clicked on the tweetcloud tab, then I clicked on "Don't like the TweetCloud? Well then, go make a Wordle!"

Draft of the 2010 Science-Technology Division of SLA Strategic Plan

SLA Science - Technology Division
Strategic Plan December 2010

DRAFT

MISSION

To equip science and technology information professionals with the skills and knowledge they need to grow and excel in a changing information landscape. The Division functions as a community that supports the professional development of its members through communication, networking, education and research.

VISION

To be the professional affiliation of choice for librarians and other information professionals who serve communities in science and technology.

GOALS & OBJECTIVES

1. Goal - Membership – increase membership and engagement of existing members
1.1 Maintain active members and recruit new ones
1.2 Encourage participation of current and potential members
1.3 Provide opportunities for participation outside of the annual conference
1.4 Increase interaction with library school students and new professionals

2. Goal - Create a greater sense of community within the Division
2.1 Consider community enhancement when planning any programs, committee work and other activities
2.2 Provide opportunities for people to interact with other members of the Division, inspiring a greater sense of connection, including at the annual conference
2.3 Provide information by and about members through various Division communication channels

3. Goal - Enhance the value of the Division and members through professional development and virtual learning opportunities
3.1 Strengthen and enhance our mentoring program, including mentoring of recent graduates, of mid-career librarians in technological areas, and of librarians new to the Sci-Tech field
3.2 Provide résumé development workshop(s) in multiple formats
3.3 Provide programming outside the annual conference
3.4 Provide negotiation skills training
3.5 Provide activities and opportunities for participation and involvement for people who can not attend the annual conference
3.6 Help members prove their worth to their employers within a Sci-Tech context
3.7 Cooperate with other SLA Divisions where the interests of the members overlap
3.8 Offer leadership in scientific and technical librarianship, including programming both at the annual conference and virtually on emerging and continuing themes in the scientific and technical disciplines


RECOMMENDED ACTIVITIES

• Conduct short surveys of the membership to elicit information about members’ needs – including thoughts on improving member engagement, benefits of joining the Division, and community engagement
• Develop marketing materials for membership recruitment and retention
• Solicit more participation in Division communications, including more writers for Sci-Tech News, blogs, and other communication modes
• Provide more information about members and their achievements: brief announcements of members’ activities within Sci-Tech News and/or our website or discussion list
• Showcase our members with more in-depth treatments such as quarterly articles within Sci-Tech News and/or our website or discussion list
• Cover topics of professional interest in Sci-Tech News, blogs, and other communication vehicles
• Encourage use of social media within the Division
• Provide programs of various types such as webinars or regional meetings
• Address the issue of flux in the STEM publishing industry
• Support Sci-Tech librarians/info professionals as they negotiate content contracts and agreements
• Support Sci-Tech librarians/info professionals as they seek professional job opportunities or professional recognition

Please let us know what you think?